Hydroponics

[Publius]

My winter personal explorations.
Starting to try and grow with hydroponics. Quite a learning curve over black dirt farming. Worry less about pest but spend a similar time worrying about water issues.

I’ve bought an indoor grow tent, which I call a “space station” closet. Mylar interior with a light bank in it so bright they advise wearing UV safety glasses. Outside ventilation blower all on timed controller.

Have five DWC buckets going and am building out three raised bed grow tents with supplemental lighting.


Remains to be seen if it will be cost effective or prohibitive on the electrical consumption side. I’m pretty frugal with an electric bill just under $100 in the off seasons. Lites are a luxury and it gets dark for a reason you know.

The irony struck me when after taking a day and a half to make it home after the snow storm one of the first things I did were to check the snow peas and and Sumer squash.
My wood lot has an excess amount of shade or I would already have a solar array.
Tried before just didn’t cut it.
If the hydroponics produce as advertised I might take out four or five trees in exchange for panels on my roof.

I’m calling it education for a collapse and a cost effective hobby for retirement.

When my wife died three years ago I thought I would travel more. But as time passed I simply had no desire to. Don’t get me wrong I love people and love talking to them when I go out. But I am comfortable alone as well. It took awhile to shake of the guilt or self doubt of being alone so much. Society stigmatizes it so much. But really in human evolutionary terms being alone or limited to small geographical areas was the norm not a psychological issue to be labeled and lobbied for.

 

[DEFCON Warning System]

I have a brown thumb. Anything I touch dies. Which makes my wife extremely nervous!

 

[Publius]

I also just remedied one of my mid term prepping deficiencies.
Ordered in a 25 lb bag of salt. Food preservation and barter.
People like to talk about how long it would take to bug out and be in the road.

I could bug out on my back in about 15 minutes. In no way optimal.
I would otherwise need 1/2 a day to just load my truck
Only thing with bugging out one daughter lives in south St. Louis and we’ve already talked about me getting them out, she doesn’t want me to do that. My brother lives 4 miles from a prison. Another non starter. There older and would very likely never come here.
So I have an area in the national forest if I needed to bail.

More importantly. I have good working relations with two close neighbors both of which have skills and families close. We share values and work ethic and because we all live on the same private road we already work together automatically to maintain the road and clear trees and snow and check on the neighborhood.
I would probably never bug out.
Except under certain dire circumstances.

Thus my burgeoning interest in hydroponics.

 

[Publius]

I have a brown thumb. Anything I touch dies. Which makes my wife extremely nervous!

My wife’s first admonishment to growing anything is don’t fiddle with it too much and never over water it.

Plants are not dumb simple things, while they do not have nervous systems or Intelligence. They have complex biochemical and bio mechanisms that will resonate to every thing from pest temp humidity light and touch. There is even evidence that sound waves of all kinds can affect almost all the molecular mechanisms in plants including photosynthesis.
Some chemically communicate with mycorrhizal fungus in the soil.
Many orchids can only move past germination with the help of specific fugal organisms in the soil.

 

[DEFCON Warning System]

Plants are not dumb simple things

I saw a documentary years ago that showed that plants know when they are going to be cut.

 

[Publius]

I saw a documentary years ago that showed that plants know when they are going to be

Not only that some release pheromones to chemically warn others around them that pest are attacking them.

Epigenetic’s is the real ghost in the machine. Studies in Northern Europe showed how the biological propensity to put on excess weight can be triggered if the Grand mother of the individual experienced severe famine. The result of famine on grandma caused her body to encode something in the egg she carried as a child which later became her child which In turn encoded something on the egg of her child she carried since her formation in grandma.
Not only what happens during pregnancy can impact the child. But what happens or behaviors of the grandmother can effect the life of the second generation.
It’s suspected that this genetic expression in the grandchildren might have lead to higher cases of diabetes. If food was not in short supply for them.

There is no end to the mysteries of life and the science will rarely be unequivocal.

 

[Yingyang]

I saw a documentary years ago that showed that plants know when they are going to be cut.

Science proved carrots scream when pulled out of ground.

 

[Yingyang]

Not sure what it is called maybe aquaponics. I knew someone who had fish under their veg and herb garden. Ended up a revolving cycle of nutrients from green algai growing on side of tank the fish ate whilst filtering the water and the root systems from veg and herbs . Very little maintenance .